Gotthard Heinrici

Gotthard Heinrici (25 December 1886-10 December 1971) was a Generaloberst of Nazi Germany who was a veteran of World War I and World War II. He was considered to be the best defensive tactician of Germany towards the end of World War II, when he commanded Army Group Vistula at the Battle of Seelow Heights and Battle of Berlin against the Soviet Union. He was also not a member of the Nazi Party, as his wife was half-Jewish, and he opposed Adolf Hitler's scorched earth policies at the end of the war.

Biography
Gotthard Heinrici was born on 25 December 1886 in Gumbinnen, East Prussia, German Empire (present-day Gusev, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia) to a local minister of the Protestant church. His family had been soldiers since the 1100s, and in 1905 he joined the German 95th Infantry Regiment, gaining the Wound Badge and two Iron Crosses during World War I, having fought at the Battle of Tannenberg and the Battle of Verdun. In the Interwar Years, Heinrici angered Adolf Hitler and other elites by refusing to join the Nazi Party, as his wife was of half-Jewish descent and their child was of mixed race according to Nazi doctrines. However, he earned a reputation as the best defensive tactician in the Wehrmacht in World War II, breaking through the Maginot Line on 14 June 1940 in France, holding the front near Moscow in the Great Patriotic War front in the east against the Soviet Union (USSR), and fighting in the various Eastern Front campaigns.

On 20 March 1945 Heinrici gained his most important position when he took over Army Group Vistula from Heinrich Himmler, and he held the Red Army at the Oder River for a time. He disagreed with the scorched earth policy that Armament Minister Albert Speer was both a proponent and opponent of, and Helmuth Reymann (the commander in Berlin) agreed not to destroy any land in Berlin unless Heinrici gave him permission. Heinrici held the Red Army back in the Battle of Seelow Heights, but the Soviets broke through and Heinrici was one of the generals in command in the Battle of Berlin, with Wilhelm Keitel relieving him of command on 29 April, a day before Hitler's suicide. On 28 May 1945, three weeks after the end of the war in Europe, he turned himself in to the British Army, and he was released in 1948. He lived to the age of 84 and died in Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg in 1971.